


In Remembrance of Love

by the_little_bay_that_could



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force Ghosts, Gen, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Love, anakin regrets a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7192958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_little_bay_that_could/pseuds/the_little_bay_that_could
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In death, years after the fall of the Empire, Anakin Skywalker considers his children, the people they have grown to be, and what they mean to his late wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Remembrance of Love

It was ironic, really.

 

His children had saved a galaxy wrought by destruction and pain.

 

The destruction and pain he had besieged upon it.

 

His children were the Light, and he was the Dark. 

 

His children were what he could have been, had he not fallen all those years ago. Had he not fallen all those years ago, he and Padmé would have been crusaders of all that is fair and just. Had he not fallen all those years ago, Padmé would have been alive to see how wonderful their children had become.

 

Their children were stars, bright and fiery, in a galaxy veiled by a heavy and burdensome cloak of darkness.

 

They were stars refusing to die. They were blazing and glorious, and it was their Light that vanquished the Dark.

 

And he had made them his own enemies.

 

He had mutilated his son. Tortured his daughter. Blew up her home planet. And for that, he was sorry. Sorry to the memory of Padmé, that he had caused their children such grief. 

 

He was sorry that he had destroyed all his wife had treasured.

 

She would be proud, though. Unconditionally proud of what her children had become.

 

Her children rebuilt all that Vader had devastated. Out of his ruin, they picked up the rubble, the charred remains of a Republic long lost, and they rebuilt.

 

Vader had sought to eradicate the Jedi, but he had failed. As the last of the old Jedi had passed into the Force, her son had risen. Luke had taken the memories and the lessons of the Old to establish the New. Luke had established a Jedi Order of balance. Emotion coincided with peace. Ignorance harmonized with knowledge. Passion with serenity. Chaos with harmony. Death with the Force.

 

Her son was infinitely kind and compassionate. Much like her. It was his kindness and compassion that had pulled Anakin from the Dark. It was _her_ son that reminded Anakin of the man he had once been. The man he had believed dead along with the rest of the old Jedi. It was her sympathetic, gentle, beautiful face, and Luke’s shinning blue orbs of eyes that reminded him that the Light had yet to be utterly conquered within him. However tenuous the thread of Light was, however deeply buried and repressed by hatred and suffering, it existed. And it was her son that let it come to the fore.

 

And with his dying breath, Anakin realized, it was the Light of her son who had saved the man entombed in the ashes of Order 66, drowned in the lava of Mustafar. It was the undying, pure Light of her son that had honored the memory of her, of Anakin, of the love they had once held so dear, of what they had once been and what they could have been.

 

His son. What a powerful Jedi he had become. He was a beacon of the Force. It flowed through him and washed over him in crashing, soft waves. It was passion and serenity. It was chaos and harmony. The sheer power his son possessed filled him with an ineffable pride. 

 

For all the hatred Vader had held for the Jedi, the love Anakin possessed for the Jedi his son had become was far greater. 

 

And his daughter. _Oh, Leia._

 

For all the years he had known of her, he had never know her to be his own. His own flesh and blood. His connection to Padmé. 

 

_His daughter_ , a young woman who he had always seen to be irrepressibly stubborn and hard-headed. Rebellion and righteousness ran through her veins as hatred and anger had his. She had inherited her mother’s passion for democracy and justice, and her father’s fiery temper.

 

She hated him. Despised him. Years after his death, after the fall of the Empire, she still struggled to reconcile that Vader was her father. And he couldn’t blame her. He didn’t. He had represented everything she feared, everything she abhorred. He was the fist of the very Empire she swore to end.

 

He tortured her. His very own daughter. He was the cause of her pain and suffering. He had tortured her and tortured her, and she had refused to yield. She would not sacrifice the fate of her rebellion. No, she was far too strong for that.

 

So, he blew up her home planet. He made her watch it, made her _feel it._ Vader had felt it. He had felt the cries of anguish as millions of lives were snuffed out in a one, devastating blow. And though, at the time, neither he nor she had been aware of her Force-sensitivity, he now knew that she had felt it. Subconsciously, she had felt the agony and the death. 

 

And for that, for the pain he had bludgeoned upon her, he was sorry. Sorry to her, and sorry to Padmé, that he had made her daughter hurt so profoundly. 

 

Leia had her mother’s soft, beautiful brown eyes. Brown eyes shadowed with pain, with righteous anger, with hope, and with love. She had her mother’s long, graceful brown hair, often delicately woven into intricate designs. She had her mother’s elegance, her royalty, her affinity for politics and leadership. She had her mother’s absolute and enduring strength.

 

Padmé would have been infinitely proud of the impressive, spirited, and determined woman her daughter had become. Her daughter who had stood bravely and resolutely in the face of tyranny, of Darkness. Her daughter who had led a rebellion to bring the Empire to its knees. 

 

And in the death of the Empire, her daughter built a Republic. A Republic that valued life and democracy, freedom and equality. A Republic that valued all the principles that Padmé had held so dearly. 

 

In time, Anakin hoped for his daughter’s forgiveness, but he understood if it would never come. If anything, he yearned for it for the sake of Padmé. So that maybe, in death, their family could become something of what Padmé had always dreamed of.

 

Anakin mourned for what their family did not become. He mourned for Padmé, for her hopes and wishes. For the hopes and wishes that had died along with her, that were turned to ash as Anakin burned. 

 

Anakin celebrated what his children had become. How tenacious and passionate, how peaceful and magnificent, they had become. He wished that though he had laid ruin to the fantasies and aspirations of the past, that the people their children had grown to be would be enough for Padmé. That they would bring her the timeless joy she always deserved. That they would restore the happiness he had so ruthlessly stolen from her.

 

They never got to live in a house by the lake on Naboo. They never got to raise two children. They never got to live happily ever after.

 

And for that, Anakin was so, deeply sorry. Not for himself, but for Padmé. 

 

Yet, Padmé lived on in the souls and in the spirits of their children. The dreams of a past life endured in their seeds, seeds that had sprouted into effervescent trees. 

 

Padmé would have been blissful to see what their children had grown to be. Anakin only wished she had been alive to see how strongly they grew and how brightly they shined. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what ya think! Comments and critiques are appreciated :)


End file.
